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Harrison Auten
Professor Grant
UWRT 1102-003
April 27, 2015
The U.S. Coast Guard and the War on Drugs: Revised
Growing up we are all told to stay away from drugs as they can be harmful and are
dangerous to our health, but what about the men and women who go after the drugs in hopes of
eradicating that problem? I had the privilege of meeting a veteran in college that once served in
the Coast Guard and was a law enforcement specialists. He spoke of drug offloads and nights at
Guantanamo Bay while serving on deployments. This later prompted me to explore what the
Coast Guard does and investigate their role, specifically their involvement towards the War on
Drugs. The art of smuggling drugs and contraband is so unique and large scale that it has
recently created a heated conflict of war for the parties involved. The United States Coast Guard
is the lead government agency for maritime security and enforcement both for drugs and
immigration as well as any other illegal behaviors. They maintain a presence around all coastal
shorelines and ports and continually deploy aboard high endurance cutter ships for months at a
time. These ships regularly patrol the Caribbean, west coast borders and coastal climates as far
south as Venezuela. Intercepting Go-Fast boats usually require the assistance of an aircraft
which spots the non-flagged vessels and reports it in to the authorities. This system surprisingly
works extremely well as the Coast Guard alone seizes, on average, eighty thousand pounds of
marijuana and two-hundred thousand pounds of cocaine annually. The U.S.C.G. is responsible

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for drug enforcement offshore by both in air or on the water and therefore offers a tremendous
assistance in the aid to fight the War on Drugs.
The best year yet for the Law Enforcement Detachment of the Coast Guard came in 2009
when a total of seventy-two thousand pounds of marijuana alongside three-hundred and fifty
three thousand pounds of cocaine were interdicted and incinerated (Drug Interdiction). This
quantity of illegal drugs was calculated for an estimated total of six billion dollars. This amount
of money is just shy of the Coast Guards requested ten billion dollar operating budget for the
fiscal year 2015. As the numbers continue to creep closer and closer, it is inferred that the War on
Drugs is being combated heavily by the Coast Guard. The expense on the smugglers side
however is far less than six billion dollars. When the paraphernalia enters the U.S. borders it is
sent to a middle party in which cuts or dilutes the concentrated narcotic and basically takes a
gram of cocaine and sells it for five grams on the open market. It is estimated by the Department
of Homeland Security that only ten percent of all drugs intended for U.S. consumption actually is
interdicted and seized. Therefore it is evident the smugglers are winning and in fact they make so
much profit that the war now has become seasonal in the summer months rather than all year
round. The pros do outweigh the cons for both sides though since the U.S. Coast Guard is
making a six billion dollar dent in the smugglers budget. The smugglers however are still
clearing a large sum of money which fuels there international drug operations even more. This
has allowed for means of stealthier equipment such as underwater mini submarines or drones,
which carry drugs to the shore and dumps them for the middle man to receive.
People fail to realize though that by withdrawing the United States assets from the fight
towards the War on Drugs doesnt mean that the military budget will not get spent. The Coast
Guard has a job to complete and that is to perform maritime security and preservation as well as

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enforce safety and shipping laws. So by taking the Coast Guard out of the fight only means they
will not be searching for drugs but rather immigrants dashing for our borders, perhaps in the
same boat as those drugs. For instance in March of 2012, the Coast Guard Cutter Sherman
intercepted a Panamanian container ship which encompassed the largest drug bust in history of
the war. A shocking forty thousand pound stash of cocaine was discovered in the cargo hold of
the vessel. This encounter resulted in a six-hundred million dollar casualty towards the
smugglers. The boats crew intended to offload its cargo and reside in the U.S. permanently with
the money made from smuggling. Many disregard this breakthrough although it is such a bust as
the Coast Guard patrols over ninety-five thousand miles of coastline to protect us as citizens; and
coming across a single mysterious boat is unlikely.
The War on Drugs has been in full swing for most of our lives which begs the question,
will there ever be peace between our borders and the drug torn countries of the south? The debate
as to the future of drug trafficking and laws pertaining to it is a sensitive topic but maybe for the
wrong reasons. Despite the staggering statistics revealed previously, the War on Drugs is in a
sense burning out, or so we are being tricked to believe. The root of such an event perhaps is
not relevant to the fact that the average pounds of drugs seized per year is going down, but rather
the fact that the Department of Defense is scaling back its maritime operations and the Coast
Guards Budget is being reevaluated (USCG Budget). Regardless that the drug count is going
down it is not necessarily because the War is coming to a close but rather the funding behind the
war is being temporally used elsewhere. Over the years and especially here recently we have
seen an up rise is drug trafficking and illegal narcotic movement. Many U.S. officials believe the
War on Drugs is becoming more and more intense as we have now put troops on the ground in
drug rich South American countries. Though the war seems to be winding down and sneaking

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behind mainstream media, the activities and operations being conducted are still heavily active it
is just not conversed about as before (U.S. Military Expands).
News around the Coast Guard has indeed spread though as they have received and
christened three new cutter vessels which can deploy on long range interdiction deployments up
to three months at a time. With an average of four-hundred men and women working on the boat
and fighting the War on drugs the demand has increased for both the maritime and aviation
departments of the U.S. Coast Guard. The public strugglers to understand how important aviation
is for the Coast Guard, not for general search and rescue purposes but for homeland security and
maritime drug interdictions as well. There are three U.S.C.G. air stations strategically located in
the Bahamas and Turks/Caicos Islands of the Caribbean for the sole purpose to catch and
prosecute smugglers and immigrants in route to the United States (Operation Bahamas,). The
most secretive air station is the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron or (HITRON) located
in Jacksonville, Florida. Specially designed French helicopters, outfitted with side machine guns
and sniper rifles, lift off in pursuit of drug runners almost daily. The War on Drugs is a key focus
of the Coast Guards mission and on any given day around eight million dollars of contraband or
illegal trade goods are ceased (HITRON Jacksonville).
Whether by ship or aircraft the Coast Guards mission is to apprehend smugglers and
there haul before it reaches U.S. soil as their jurisdiction ends and the Drug Enforcement Agency
begins. An interesting fact about the guards role in the war on drugs is the fact that they must
turn all goods and there owners over to the DEA for processing and are not allowed to dispose of
the drugs themselves. On the flip side of the spectrum however, at sea when a ship is stopped and
searched for drugs, if found guilty the detainees are brought aboard the cutter and the other ship
is at the discretion of the commander in charge. Most interdictions occur far outside of the

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shipping channels (to avoid detection) and are therefore sunk to the depths once cleaned of all
environmental unfriendly contaminants as well as the drugs onboard. (U.S.C.G News on
Drugs)
The Coast Guards main partners in the Drug War are the Drug Enforcement Agency,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Patrol Agency. With
these four organizations operating in full swing the citizens of the United States can rest assured
that our shorelines are safe and secure. With fifty states and seven territories the U.S. Coast
Guard and its strong partnership protect almost four-hundred million individuals. So as we can
see it is a team effort to combat the War on Drugs and some even give their life to protect our
breath taking land. Whether drug use is right or wrong in the eyes of society these men and
women should be considered as always doing the right thing at all cost (I.C.E. USCG Arrest).
With a little research this topic has become very intriguing and it is impressive just how
large scale and complex the War on Drugs really is. The U.S. Coast Guard is very much capable
of constricting the flow of drugs to the United States but with all of the United States assets in
one basket, even then eradicating the drug war is not optimistic. Drugs are even more powerful
and popular in todays society and are applicable for a multitude of reasons both illegal and
recreational as well as medical. The idea of scaling back the fight towards the war on drugs is
not approaching lawmakers in the near future, but as demand and supply both increase around
the world, and the U.S. being the number one consumer of all types of drugs, is there any more
action to take by the authorities? Time will only tell as this is a unique and unpredictable war but
as a society we should know that the U.S. Coast Guard will be right in the middle of the event
that takes place. The Coast Guard is very proficient and productive in there day to day operations
that make them a military branch of the armed service and it is extremely humbling to the

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average citizen to obtain valuable information about such an organization and be in support of
the unthinkable.

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Works Cited
"Drug Interdiction." (CG-MLE-3). Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
"U.S. Coast Guard News on Drugs." U.S. Coast Guard News on Drugs. 25 Mar. 2004.
Web. 1 Apr"USCG Budget." USCG Budget. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
"US Military Expands Its Billion Dollar Drug War in Latin America." Fox News. FOX News
Network, 4 Feb. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
"Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos (OPBAT)." USCG: OPBAT (Nassau, Bahamas). Web.
26 Apr. 2015.
"(HITRON) Jacksonville." USCG HITRON Jacksonville. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
"ICE, USCG Arrest 3, Seize 532 Pounds of Cocaine." ICE, USCG Arrest 3, Seize 532 Pounds of
Cocaine. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.